Campaigns Run and Win on Data
10 Lessons in 10 Years: Episode #5
TL;DR
“Organizing” in politics means connecting people to build power. Campaigns run on it through canvassing, phone banking, and text banking.
Those tactics only become a winning machine when they’re data-informed: a clean voter file, honest district history, and a plan that connects the two.
Skipping this step costs campaigns money and volunteer hours. Building the habit early is what lets small campaigns beat bigger ones.
NDTC is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, and over the last decade, we’ve trained thousands of Democrats to run for office and win elections. Our learners have flipped seats across the country and built critical state and local party infrastructure to power Democratic wins at every level.
But it hasn’t always been easy, and we’ve learned our fair share of lessons along the way. Now, we’re sharing all those insights with you.
This is the fifth installment of “10 Lessons in 10 Years,” our monthly(-ish) series reflecting on what a decade of Democratic training has taught us. Each one breaks down an insight we’ve seen proven true again and again, across thousands of campaigns.
Some of these lessons we’ve had to learn the hard way. Now you don’t have to. Notebooks out, pencils up.
This month’s lesson gets to the core of what campaigns run and win on: data and organized information. You’ve more likely heard the general term “organizing” in politics to reference uniting people around a shared purpose. It goes beyond issue awareness or message spreading, and focuses on actually connecting people to each other to build power. Think of a union, like our partner SEIU. They organize through worker membership to fight for higher wages and better contracts.
Campaigns rely on a lot of the most common people-organizing tactics, like door-to-door canvassing and phone or text banking. But they only become well-oiled, winning machines when they’re data-informed.
What Being “Data-Informed” Actually Means
When we say building power through being “data-informed,” we’re not necessarily talking about a mysterious algorithm or an expensive black box. It can be as simple as three key things done well.
First, the voter file. This is the list of every registered voter in your district, along with what the state records about them: their address, their party registration where applicable, and, most importantly, whether they voted in past elections – not who they voted for, which is private, but whether they showed up. A clean, current voter file is the single most valuable asset a campaign should have access to. Too many first-time campaigns treat it as an afterthought, something the field director downloads in week two, instead of the document that should shape the campaign plan from week one.
Second, past election history. Every district has a record. How did similar candidates perform in the last three or four cycles? Which precincts overperformed or underperformed the district average? Did turnout spike or collapse in certain areas, and why? A district that split 55-45 in a presidential year might look completely different in a midterm or an off-year or special election. Campaigns that ignore this history end up rediscovering it the hard way, usually around 9 p.m. on election night.
Third, a plan that connects the two. Data without a plan to use it is just another spreadsheet lost in a million other files. The point of organizing your voter file and your district’s history is to answer a simple question: who, specifically, do you need to talk to to win votes, and in what order? Platforms like VoteBuilder help automate the process of organizing and segmenting lists of voters to reach out to, based on data points like voter propensity and support likelihood. A campaign with limited volunteers and a limited budget cannot knock on every door or call every number. It has to choose. Being data-informed is what makes that choice deliberate and strategic, so you don’t have to be the biggest, highest-funded campaign to win.
The Cost of Skipping This Step
Instinctual knowledge of your district is an asset to your campaign, but it’s not a targeting plan.
Every cycle, candidates lose because they think that “knowing their district” will be enough. They’ve lived there twenty years, and they know their neighbors well. But often, they’re more familiar with the loudest voices there, rather than the folks who actually show up to vote in a primary. (The two are not always the same.) Or worse, they spend their valuable volunteer hours talking to voters who were already voting for them, without thanking or mobilizing them to reach or persuade more voters still on the fence.
But we’ve also seen underdog campaigns out-organize their opponents. A statehouse candidate with a small budget, a couple of part-time field organizers, and a well-managed voter file that showed exactly which few thousand voters would decide the race.
The candidates who win pair their local knowledge with voter files, actual turnout history, and a good look at what happened in their district in the last several elections.
NDTC is Your Data Partner
If you’re a first-time candidate or a staffer new to this work, the good news is that this is a learnable skill, and one that you are perfectly capable of. It’s less about being organized by nature and more about getting comfortable with a few key tools, like your state’s voter file system or a tool like VAN, which most state parties and committees provide access to.
If you’re just getting started, we’re here to point you in the right direction. Platforms like VoteBuilder (“VAN”), RunningMate, and ActBlue offer tools to help you manage voter files and other data.
If you’re ready to dive all the way in, our How to Use VoteBuilder Effectively learning plan is a comprehensive guide to all things data management on your campaign.
If you’re looking for a quicker entry point, our VoteBuiler for Field Directors free course will help you use the tool to target the right voters and implement best practices for managing data across your entire campaign.
And our Voter Contact Toolkit will help you organize information across every major voter contact method.
The campaigns that build these habits early (and with proper training) waste less money on the wrong mailers, less volunteer hours on the wrong doors, less time chasing voters who were never in play or always were.
If you’re gearing up for a run of your own, head to TrainDems.org. We’ll teach you how to read a voter file, how to pull your district’s history, and how to turn both into a plan that wins.
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